Image, not truth, tends to be the way of far too many of the nation's universities and colleges today.  Periodically in the news, academic corruption makes the headlines.  If doubtful, do some research! Try googling the following:  CORRUPTION + ACADEME.  The list below will continue to grow. 

Texas Southern University President Is Fired
June 8, 2006 (NYTimes)
The president of Texas Southern University, Priscilla Slade, was fired after she failed to attend a hearing she had requested to appeal her April dismissal. Regents at the university, in Houston, voted unanimously to fire her after two audits alleged that Dr. Slade had spent $650,000 of university funds on personal expenses. A Harris County grand jury is also investigating the expenditures. Dr. Slade's lawyer said the dismissal would be challenged in a lawsuit.

Bill Weld's Kentucky Accusers
A pair of former executives from a for-profit trade school in Kentucky that is under federal investigation are accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate William Weld of playing larger a role in the school's collapse than the candidate has acknowledged. Weld was the chief executive at the school, Decker College, until last month, when he officially stepped down to launch a bid for governor of New York.

Sherrie Moore, a payroll supervisor, and Steve Johnson, an admissions director who said he'd worn a wire and provided documentary evidence for the ongoing investigation into allegations that the school bilked the government out of student aid money, posted their accusations on a political blog and repeated them on Tuesday to The Observer. Both employees wrote messages suggesting that Weld's involvement with Decker College ran deeper than the campaigning candidate has acknowledged.

"William Weld does not need to lead one citizen of the United States," Johnson told The Observer on Tuesday.

He also confirmed that he was the source of a Nov. 8th posting, which claimed Weld was aware of illegal activity during his tenure at Decker College. On a political blog called The Next Hurrah, Johnson wrote:

"William Weld knew all about the fraud, he sent a e-mail to all Decker employees saying if fraud was going on the people will leave in handcuffs. I brought files proving fraud to Weld and his Decker Leadership. The result was me being promptly moved to baby sitting duties in Decker College. Yes, Weld's Decker College paid me in a attempt to be quiet almost 50,000 a year to do nothing more that wake students up at the local hotel. [sic]"
 

University Chief Fired Over Handling of Crime
By John Holusha, July 16, 2007, NY Times
The president of Eastern Michigan University was dismissed Sunday night, following a scandal involving the university’s handling of the rape and murder of a student in her dormitory room, the Ann Arbor News reported today.
The university president, John A. Fallon 3d, confirmed to the newspaper that he had received a letter from the university’s Board of Regents terminating his employment, after two years of a five-year contract. He said the latter did not state a reason for his firing.
Mr. Fallon and other university officials have been under fire since they issued a statement saying that the death of the student, Laura Dickinson, 22, on Dec. 15, 2006, did not involve foul play, despite evidence to the contrary.
In a more recent comment on the issue, Mr. Fallon said “the university ‘got it wrong’ in the aftermath of her death, shamefully so.”
Two months after her death, the university revealed to her parents and to the campus that she had in fact been murdered, after a fellow student was arrested on charges of raping and killing her. Mr. Fallon said he had relied on university security officials for information on the case.
Mr. Fallon’s dismissal came after a period of turmoil at the institution, which is located in Ypsilanti, Mich., about 30 miles west of Detroit. The issues included cost overruns on an elaborate house for the university president, and a 12-day strike by faculty members last fall.
Mr. Fallon was the university’s third president in the past seven years.

University Fires Officials for Concealing Killing
By Nick Bunkley, July 17, 2007, NY Times
YPSILANTI, Mich., July 16 — Six months after a female student was raped and killed in her dormitory room, Eastern Michigan University said on Monday that it had fired three administrators, including its president, who are accused of covering up the fact that a crime had been committed.
The president, John A. Fallon III, was ousted exactly two years into his five-year contract. The university’s Board of Regents also dismissed James F. Vick, vice president for student affairs, and Cindy Hall, the public safety director, and reprimanded Kenneth A. McKanders, the general counsel.
The actions follow reports, including one by the federal Department of Education and another commissioned by the university from investigators at a local law firm, that said university officials had violated federal campus crime reporting law by waiting more than two months to tell other students and the public that the student, Laura Dickinson, 22, had been killed on Dec. 12.
University officials had insisted that foul play was not suspected even as the police were investigating several suspects, and only revealed the circumstances of Ms. Dickinson’s death to her family and the campus community after another student was arrested in February.
The arrested student, Orange Taylor III, has been charged with murder and is scheduled to go on trial this fall. He has pleaded not guilty.
The university expects to find out within two months whether it will be fined by the Education Department for the administrators’ actions.
“We are committed to regaining the trust of all E.M.U. stakeholders, and all of the people of the great state of Michigan,” Thomas W. Sidlik, the board’s chairman, told about 200 people crowded in the regents’ meeting room Monday. “This board will not tolerate anyone who sabotages the educational mission of this university by participating in these destructive behavior patterns.”
Mr. Fallon has maintained that he was unaware that the student’s death was being investigated as a crime because his subordinates did not tell him, and that he acted to the best of his ability. He was not singled out for wrongdoing in either of the reports but has been the primary target of outrage expressed by parents and faculty members.
The departures of Mr. Vick and Ms. Hall were agreed upon several weeks ago but not revealed until Monday. The board decided to oust Mr. Fallon during a Sunday meeting by telephone, after learning that he “may have been contemplating additional action that would have further damaged this university,” said James F. Stapleton, a board member who led the university’s efforts to investigate the handling of Ms. Dickinson’s death.
Mr. Stapleton declined to elaborate on his comment, saying that Mr. Fallon would probably make a public statement in the coming days.
Mr. Fallon did not respond to messages left Monday at his university-owned home, which he has 60 days to vacate. The evening before his ouster was announced, he told The Ann Arbor News, “I have a story to tell and intend to tell it.”
Mr. Sidlik said in an interview, “There was a general falling apart of the relationship over the last few days.”
Even before Ms. Dickinson’s death, Mr. Fallon was a controversial figure at the university. Faculty members went on strike for 12 days last fall after he halted contract negotiations. In December, three regents resigned, saying the campus was filled with distrust and open animosity.
Some professors said they were relieved that Mr. Fallon was leaving.
“It’s unfortunate, but it had to happen,” said Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott, a political science professor who said Mr. Fallon headed “a really incompetent presidential administration.”
Board members said that since the killing, the 23,000-student university had taken many steps to improve security, including changing locks on office doors and beginning a complete audit of safety at university facilities.
Robert Dickinson, Ms. Dickinson’s father, said he was pleased to see the university making changes, but he declined to say whether he was satisfied with the board’s actions. Mr. Dickinson said that Mr. Fallon had visited him to apologize but that he had had no other contact with university officials.
“If there’s another university that can benefit from seeing these mistakes and taking care of their own, that would be good,” said Mr. Dickinson, who owns a coffee shop in Hastings, Mich., a small town about 120 miles northwest of the university.